Griffith, Bill 1944–

(Griffy)

PERSONAL:

Born January 20, 1944, in Brooklyn, NY; son of James Louis (an army officer) and Barbara M. (a writer) Griffith; married Diane R. Rosenblatt (a cartoonist under the name Diane Noomin), November 18, 1980. Education: Attended Pratt Institute, 1962-64. Politics: "Left-wing homeowner."

ADDRESSES:

Home—East Haddam, CT.

CAREER:

Painter; cartoonist and writer, 1968—. Work exhibited at galleries and museums, including Whitney Museum of American Art; first comic character, Mr. The Toad, appeared in East Village Other and Screw magazines; Arcade, the Comics Revue, San Francisco, CA, coeditor; worked for various publishers, including Print Mint, Last Gasp, Rip Off Press, Kitchen Sink, and Fantagraphics Books; Pinhead Productions, owner.

MEMBER:

National Cartoonists Society, Writers Guild of America East.

WRITINGS:

Zippy Stories, Rip Off Press (San Francisco, CA), Number 1, 1977, Number 2, 1978, And/Or Press, 1981.

Yow Comics, Last Gasp (San Francisco, CA), Number 1, 1978, Number 2, 1979.

Griffith Observatory, Rip Off Press (San Francisco, CA), 1979.

Yow Comics Number 2, Last Gasp (San Francisco, CA), 1980.

Zippy Number 3, Last Gasp (San Francisco, CA), 1980.

Zippy: Nation of Pinheads, And/Or Press, 1982.

(With Nigey Lennon) Alfred Jarry: The Man with the Axe, Panjandrum (San Francisco, CA), 1983.

Pointed Behavior, Last Gasp (San Francisco, CA), 1984.

Are We Having Fun Yet?, Dutton (New York, NY), 1985.

Pindemonium, Last Gasp (San Francisco, CA), 1986.

King Pin, Dutton (New York, NY), 1987.

Pinhead's Progress, Dutton (New York, NY), 1989.

Get Me a Table without Flies, Harry: Travel Sketches by Bill Griffith, Fantagraphics Books (Seattle, WA), 1990.

From A to Zippy: Getting There Is All the Fun, Penguin Books (New York, NY), 1991.

Zippy's House of Fun: 54 Months of Sundays, Fantagraphics (Seattle, WA), 1998.

The Zippy Annual: October 2002-October 2003, Fantagraphics (Seattle, WA), 2003.

Zippy: From Here to Absurdity, Fantagraphics (Seattle, WA), 2004.

Zippy: Type Z Personality, Fantagraphics (Seattle, WA), 2006.

Zippy: Connect the Polka Dots, Fantagraphics (Seattle, WA), 2006.

Zippy: Walk a Mile in My Muu-Muu, Fantagraphics (Seattle, WA), 2007.

Welcome to Dingburg (also known as Zippy the Pinhead), Fantagraphics (Seattle, WA), 2008.

Work represented in anthologies, including Weinsinn und Feinsinn, 2001 Press, 1983. Author of a bi-monthly cartoon feature in National Lampoon. Creator of the daily comic strip "Zippy," syndicated by King Features to about 150 newspapers. Contributor to periodicals, sometimes under the name Griffy. Coeditor of Arcade, 1975-76.

SIDELIGHTS:

Bill Griffith got his start drawing comics in the late 1960s, having spent time exhibiting in art galleries and museums in New York. His first comic, Mr. The Toad, was run in East Village Other and Screw magazines. In 1970, Griffith moved to San Francisco, where most up-and-coming comic artists and writers were migrating. A number of small, independent comic presses grew up in the Bay area at that time, and Griffith ultimately worked for several of them, including Print Mint, Last Gasp, and Rip Off Press (as well as working with Kitchen Sink in Milwaukee and Fantagraphics in Seattle). His most beloved and best-known character is Zippy the Pinhead, whose memorable phrase, "Are we having fun yet?" became a slogan for the 1980s and 90s, and is far more frequently quoted than accurately attributed (although the 16th edition of Barlett's Familiar Quotations manages to get it right). The earliest incarnation of the Zippy comics was printed in Real Pulp #1, in 1970. By 1980 the strip was syndicated by Zipsynd, later known as Pinhead Productions. From 1977 to 1984, Zippy also appeared in both the National Lampoon and High Times. Ultimately, the syndicated strip began appearing in more than two hundred different newspapers, including the San Francisco Chronicle, the Washington Post, and the Boston Globe. In an interview with Carolyn Battista on his home page, Griffith remarked of the comic art form: "Jazz, rock and roll, movies and comics are the culture of America. That has its up side—we expect a lot from these pop culture kinds of things. The down side of Americans being obsessed with pop culture is that they kind of like it light." He went on to add: "Sometimes when people read Zippy they're expecting it to fall into the same formula as some other comics. That's not what I do." Griffith uses Zippy and the comic strip in general to comment on the world around him in a smart, postmodern way that focuses on current pop culture and what it really means.

Griffith has collected his Zippy comics into numerous published volumes, including Zippy Stories, Zippy: Nation of Pinheads, Pinhead's Progress, Zippy's House of Fun: 54 Months of Sundays, Zippy: Type Z Personality, and Zippy: Connect the Polka Dots. Ralph Novak, reviewing Pinhead's Progress for People, commented that "Griffith's drawings are at times cluttered and hard to read, but they're lively and rarely smug." A Publishers Weekly contributor, referring to Zippy: Type Z Personality, remarked that "it's rare to find something so smart that's so accessible," and concluded that the comic "thrives on the mix between the real and the unreal." Ray Olson, reviewing the volume for Booklist, commented that "Griffith's ongoing satire of commercialism and the ways it warps our minds is as sharp as ever."

Griffith once told CA: "Cartoonists walk the tightrope between graphics and literature in a uniquely crazy American art form. Satire and character study are my main stocks in trade. In my days as a painter, after art school, there was always a Jerry Lewis tripping over my Van Dyke easel and landing face first in the alizarin crimson. I guess I like to make people look at interesting art work, then laugh and fall down."